The panel is now likely to spend nearly $1.6 million in total over the course of just under a year after the House previously approved a $790,000 budget. It is expected to issue a report before it disbands at the end of this year.

Women’s rights groups, healthcare professionals, and Democratic lawmakers have called for the subcommittee to be shut down; on Thursday they reiterated those calls.

“Republicans are wasting no time in pursuing their promise to roll back women’s health care,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) added in a statement. “The panel has already endangered doctors’ lives and life-saving research. Studies and clinical trials on diseases and conditions like multiple sclerosis that impact millions of Americans have been delayed or halted. And panel Republicans have released the names of doctors knowing that doing so threatens their safety.”

“This investigation—built on the lies perpetuated by anti-abortion extremists—has never been nor will it ever be a fact-based investigation,” she continued. “Despite Republicans’ failure to find any evidence of wrongdoing, they continue to make inflammatory allegations to justify the panel’s existence.”

Indeed, just Thursday it was revealed that the panel had referred Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast for criminal prosecution by the Texas Attorney General.

By Love’s admission, three congressional committee investigations found no basis in [the Center for Medical Progress]’s claims that Planned Parenthood, or other targeted entities, profited from fetal tissue donations. Nor did 13 states and a Texas grand jury. Nevertheless, Love said the referrals stand as “proof of potential criminal activity in the fetal tissue industry” and “justify the existence of the panel and their investigations.”

“The work of the select panel is not over,” she said. “And more referrals are to come.”

“It is appalling that the House of Representatives just gave the dangerous Select Investigative Panel an $800,000 pat on the back for its work to peddle lies, waste taxpayer dollars, and put students, researchers, and doctors in harms way with its partisan witch hunts,” said Sasha Bruce, senior vice president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “We’re repulsed by the latest action to keep this panel alive, and urge the anti-choice GOP to consider that the priorities of the American people are in direct opposition with the work of this panel.”

About ew

ew came of age during the winddown to the Vietnam War, and like many other Americans, as soon there wasn’t an issue that didn’t affect him personally, he became indifferent. This gradually changed during the Reagan and Bush I years, continued through the Clinton years and finally came to a head with the passage of the Patriot Act in 2001. He works as a freelance consultant/tester for various music hardware and software companies, and lives in Minnesota with his cat and other weird and wonderful noise machines.